Staff Debate: Bold Proclamations

The few weeks of the college lacrosse season are a minefield of overreaction — how fair is it to compare a Duke team that’s played five games to a Cornell team that’s played two, or a team that has to practice with orange balls to pick it out of the snow to a team that practices indoors?

That said, the first small pieces of evidence from the early season can reinforce or disprove opinions, assumptions or preconceived notions built up in the preseason.

Claiming that High Point would win more than three games two weeks ago would’ve seemed like an overreaction to their Towson win, and in the wake of losses to Air Force and St. Joe’s, that might seem even more foolish. However, I’ll stand by that statement (and the accompanying bet I made with Quint Kessenich; he took under three wins and either he has to wear a High Point T-shirt at the Final Four practice or I have to wear a BU shirt) for a few reasons.

First, I think St. Joe’s and Air Force aren’t bad losses. Second, I think there are signs of success — consistent save percentage, improving face-off numbers, diminishing shooting numbers from opponents — and areas to improve — taking too many penalties, turning the ball over too much, diminishing shooting numbers. And the schedule has at least three more winnable games the rest of the way.

John Jiloty (@JJiloty)

UMass will be a Final Four contender. That might be a tad bold, but they have a pretty complete roster, and they beat a talented North Carolina team without a returning Tewaaraton Trophy finalist and MLL Draft pick in Will Manny. Redshirt freshman Zach Oliveri (IL’s No. 6-rated goalie recruit in 2011) has been a huge addition in goal (59%), and face-off man Joe Calvello comes off a solid outing (12-of-27) against one of the nation’s top draw men in RG Keenan. I think not having Manny around will be great for the Minutemen as guys like Connor Mooney, Kyle Smith, Andrew Sokol, Matt Whippen and Bobby Tyler gain more experience leading this offense — as long as Manny makes it back healthy in time for the stretch run.

Geoff Shannon (@Geoff_Shannon)

Another Year, Another season that Duke makes the NCAA Final Four. It’s become a spring ritual for me to gauge when the Blue Devils look to make “the turn”, when they go from losing games to winning them. I’m not sure it happens this week against Maryland, but if they do sneak a home win against the Terps, then push their way through March and April like they normally do, I got no issues with them marching to Philadelphia once again. Yeah, those consecutive losses hurt, but John Danowski makes it hard for me to be an early hater.

Zach Babo (@ZachBabo)

I don’t know if this is necessarily a wild overreaction, but I don’t think we’re going to see more than one Patriot League team in the tournament. Everyone was high on that conference coming in, as Colgate and Lehigh enjoyed historic years in those programs, Navy looked to be building a better team, and Bucknell returned a lot of talent. But with eight AQ’s in the 16-team field, that leaves just eight spots for at large bids. With the ACC likely taking four, plus another one to Hopkins, that leaves three spots for everyone else to fight for. One Patriot League team will get in from their AQ, but I don’t think another league team will have a strong enough resume to steal one of those three spots, especially if we start seeing some unexpected AQ’s (like Notre Dame not winning the Big East, Denver or Loyola not winning the ECAC) sneak in there.

Matt Kinnear (@MattKinnear)

Jesse Bernhardt will win the Tewaaraton. The win against Loyola, in which Bernhardt seemed to be everywhere and do everything, affirmed my choice of Bernhardt for Tewaaraton. No, he's not traditional pick. Rob Pannell seems on his way for a Tewaaraton-worth campaign, an Peter Baum is right there with him. In fact, when I said this in the office, a co-worker said there's "no way" they'll pick a defensive player. But we all know how much a strong postseason performance can bolster a resume. I see the Terps going deep — they're my pick to win it all — and Bernhardt will be a big part of that. I'd like to see an LSM as the winner this June.

Casey Vock (@cvock)

I'll stick with my prediction that Lyle Thompson will finish the season as one of the top scorers in college lacrosse and could very well end up a Tewaaraton Trophy finalist in his sophomore season. The young man's got 8 and 9 in his first two games playing against what looks like two good teams. And, though I think I was a little quick to say that the Great Danes would run the table in the America East (as Stony Brook looks strong so far), if Albany can make it to the post-season, that effort will likely have been led by continued head-turning production from Lyle (with his brother Miles and cousin also racking up big points as the main forces for Albany's offense). If that's the case, and I do think we could see Lyle put up 70 or more points even if Albany struggles at any point, I strongly feel you'll see Thompson's name on the Tewaaraton finalist list, and for good reason.